Ye Olde Spellbooke
by calciseptine
Summary: A collection of Merlin drabbles. Update: Steady. Merlin/Arthur. "Steady," Merlin says.
1. The Once and Future Queen of a Sort

**Story Title**: The Once and Future Queen (of a Sort)  
**Rated**: PG for no particular reason  
**Status**: Complete || 600+  
**Summary**: [Arthur/Merlin] A moment between the king and his court sorcerer.  
**Steve's Notes**: I really love playing with the dynamics that Merlin and Arthur will have once they have more equal roles, and are more likely than not in a relationship. I wrote this thinking that Merlin and Arthur _were_ involved, but it ended up being about as slashy as the series—which, you know, is still pretty slashy.  
**Disclaimer**: _Merlin_ © BBC

* * *

The queen's crown sits on the same purple velvet cushion is has for the past three decades, gleaming pale gold and sapphire. Arthur thinks it is accusing him of something—of what, he can't be sure.

"It looks heavier than yours," Merlin murmurs beneath his breath, squinting at the crown as though trying to decipher one of his more complex spells. He even rubs a hand across the straggle of hair on his chin that he calls a beard. "You know, I could just—"

Arthur rolls his eyes as Merlin wiggles his fingers, an unfortunate hand sign that he's taken to using when he means, _I can use my magic to make everything better._ (The first time he wiggled his fingers at Arthur, nearly ten years ago, Arthur had sputtered indignantly, "And just what is _that_ supposed to mean?" to which Merlin has replied, "Well, it makes a lot more sense then those other silly gestures you use." Arthur snapped, "Nothing is more silly than wiggling your fingers like a _girl_, Merlin," and the entire conversation degraded from there, as it was prone to do.)

"Even your magic can't make this go away," Arthur sighs, rolling his tense shoulders. "Camelot needs an heir, and to produce one, I need a wife."

"You're beginning to sound a lot like your stuffy councilors," Merlin says absently.

"In case your mental affliction has seized you once again, Merlin, you _are_ one of my councilors."

"Yes, but I'm not one of the stuffy ones now am I?" Merlin flashes him one of his quicksilver grins before he does the unthinkable; he takes the queen's crown into his hands and places it gently on his own head.

Deep in Arthur's gut, there's a flare of indignant rage. Nobody has worn that crown since his mother died, and the first person to have that honor should be the wife Arthur does not yet have. It's a fleeting emotion, however, because Arthur realizes several things at once: the first, that no wife will ever be as close to him as Merlin, the second, that Merlin pretty much _is_ his wife with all his nagging and all his love, and the last, that the crown fits Merlin as though it were made for him. His dark hair curls around the pale gold and the blue of his eyes matches the blue of the embedded sapphires, turning him from the bumbling court magician into something more enigmatic, more regal.

"Well, then?" Merlin prompts, the curl of his smile softer, more understanding, and infinitely more sorrowful. "How do I look?"

Arthur opens his mouth but noise comes out. So he steps forward, closing the space between them, and runs a callused thumb over the prominent edge of Merlin's cheekbone. "Fit for a king," Arthur murmurs, and Merlin's eyelashes alight on his skin like the wings of a small bird, too delicate and too brittle.

It is a long time before either of them can speak, standing there breathing in the other, imagining what it would be like if Merlin could wear a crown like Arthur wears his. Merlin is the first to pull away, the corners of his mouth carrying the traces of his heartbreak; however, it is Arthur who removes his mother's crown and replaces it on it's lonely velvet cushion. They both stare at it, thinking of the duty and obligation it carries, and how one day, they will have to shoulder it's burden regardless.

"It's just as well," Merlin says when they finally look away and he slips his cold fingers into Arthur's warm palm. "I would look horrid in a dress."

* * *

end.


	2. against the walls, against your rules

**Story Title**: against the walls, against your rules, against your skin  
**Rated**: NC-17 for cross-dressing and sexual situations  
**Status**: Complete / 700+  
**Summary**: [Arthur/Merlin] Merlin feels strangely powerful and intoxicating, and wonders if this is how girls feel all the time.  
**Steve's Notes**: Written for **hermette's** fu-a-thon on LiveJournal, for a picture prompt. I'm pretty sure I screamed "YES PLEASE" at my computer screen and wrote this entirely to Passion Pit's _Sleepyhead_, which is why my title is so odd. DAMN YOU PASSION PIT.  
**Disclaimer**: _Merlin_ © BBC

* * *

"Mer_lin_," Arthur cajoles from their tiny, shared dormitory. "It cannot _possibly_ be as terrible as you are making this out to be."

If he could find his voice, Merlin would like it known that yes, _yes_, it could possibly be as terrible as he made this out to be, if not _worse_.

"Don't be such a girl," Arthur snorts, his contempt penetrating the bathroom door that separates them. "A dare is a dare is a dare, and you'll owe me money I know you don't have if you balk."

The reflection in the mirror tells Merlin that he would rather pull double shifts at the Starbucks in the student union than go outside because _he is never going to hear the end of this._

"Really, Merlin, I'm not going to take any pictures," Arthur continues to prattle. "It's enough that the entire footie team saw you lose spectacularly and that Morgana bought these _especially_ for you. And if you doesn't have the—"

Merlin will never know what possesses him to open the bathroom door, jerking it so hard it nearly comes off its abused hinges. Maybe it's because he—like Arthur—is prone to fits of shockingly pig-headedness that often result in undue amounts of embarrassment and, despite the embarrassment he feels hot in his face and ears, he's not about to back down.

Arthur's reaction, however, is not something Merlin is prepared for. He's not prepared for the way Arthur's crossed arms go slack and drop to his sides, the way his fists curl and uncurl by his hips. He's not prepared for the noise that crawls out of Arthur's throat, a choked and desperate whine, nor is he prepared for the way Arthur's blue, blue eyes go round in his golden face. He's not prepared for the way he feels his cock swell and twitch inside the sheer black panties at Arthur's obvious desire, the way he sees Arthur's pressed hard and sudden against the placket of his jeans.

"You—" Arthur grits through his imbalanced teeth. "You really—"

Despite his embarrassment and the flush that he knows has crept down his neck and into the dip of his clavicles, Merlin quirks his hip to the right and throws his shoulders back. He nearly teeters on the kitten heels he's crammed his feet into and the bra tightens, alien, underneath the line of his pectorals. Merlin feels strangely powerful and intoxicating, and wonders if this is how girls feel all the time.

"I don't think we should give Morgana these back," Merlin purrs, finally, because Arthur can only stare. "Well?"

Arthur takes two huge strides forward until he's against the heat of Merlin's body, then a third so Merlin is trapped between him and the bathroom door. Then he drops to his knees without regard and has his mouth against the curve of Merlin's dick so quickly that Merlin has time only to exclaim, "_Fuck!_"

Arthur drags his mouth, his teeth, his wet hot tongue over Merlin, pressing against him through the fabric. Arthur sucks and he moans against the silk like a whore, his spit soaking through and cooling sharply where his harsh, whistling breathes don't wash over Merlin's skin. Merlin immediately, instinctively bites into his knuckles to keep his noise inside his chest and throat, where it bounces around and steals the air from his lungs.

Again and again, Arthur runs his red mouth over Merlin's cock, his tongue pressed hard and wide against it, the threat of his teeth lingering as he sucks on the head. Merlin watches unblinkingly, tears in the corners of his eyes, because he cannot bear to not watch. He stares at the furrow between Arthur's bold eyebrows, how the fingers of his free hand tangle in the mane of Arthur's hair, how blooded red and fat and slick Arthur's lips look against the damp, hot and cold silk. Merlin comes like this: pulling sharply on Arthur's hair, teeth breaking the skin of his knuckles, the fragments of Arthur's name still inside, with his lungs and his heart.

Then, Merlin's bony knees knocking against Arthur's shoulders, Arthur tugs him down and pulls him close, one of his hands sticky—impatient, like he couldn't wait to have Merlin, like he couldn't wait to suck Merlin's cock. And he's still panting as he nuzzles the soft and sweat slick skin behind Merlin's ear, when he murmurs, "If Morgana asks—you burned them."

* * *

end.


	3. Steady

**Story Title**: Steady  
**Rated**: PG-13 for vague gore and vaguer sexual situations  
**Status**: Complete || 800+  
**Summary**: [Arthur/Merlin] "Steady," Merlin says.  
**Steve's Notes**: Written for **hermette's** fu-a-thon on LiveJournal, for this prompt: _Arthur has magic, and Merlin guides him through it._ This prompt grabbed me by the boo-boo and I just had to write it. For **copperiisulfate**.  
**Disclaimer**: _Merlin_ © BBC

* * *

Arthur never knew and those who thought they knew, who dared to have the notion creep into the periphery of their mind, kept it there. It was like a wolf that circled too close to the fire; it was too dangerous to let it come close, but it was impossible to keep away.

And, like a wolf, it crept closer and closer, until it snapped its jaws and it was too late.

.

Arthur would have to be daft, as daft as Merlin pretends to be, to be ignorant of Merlin's magic. Merlin and magic are synonymous, and sometimes, Arthur thinks Merlin and magic are symbiotic too. He thinks this when he sees Merlin's tongue and teeth and lips contorting and forming Old and long-forgotten words, when Merlin's eyes break from blue to gold, when Merlin is careless and bothers with little more than a gesture.

At first Arthur wants to draw his blade and cut Merlin open, neck to navel, spill his guts like the animal he is. Yet he thinks of the gentle way Merlin wraps his fingers around the stalks of Morgana's flowers, Gaius' herbs, and how those fingers would twitch as he bled to a painful death. So he thrashes his knights instead and calls it training, and dismisses Merlin from his duties.

Arthur remembers hating that Merlin was magic, that magic was Merlin. He cannot remember when it filled him so full, he feared he would burst.

.

The druids will tell Arthur, one day, that Merlin was born of a mortal man and a mortal woman, but he was born of magic, too. Before that, Merlin will tell Arthur that he was born of Uther and Ygraine, but that magic was the only reason he came, screaming and bloody, into the world that he would conquer, and unite.

.

"Steady," Merlin says, stutters through his teeth, his fingers tripping over Arthur's body. "Steady."

Arthur would tell Merlin to shut up, to just do it, to stop treating him like he's going to break, but he has no air in his lungs and his world is narrowed down to the tilt of his hips and the burn of Merlin pushing inside him, fitting them together. It's wonderful and horrible and when the candle flame by the bedside bursts, Arthur hardly notices.

But Merlin notices, as subtle as the magic is, and his eyebrows furrow deeper over blue, blue eyes.

.

A sword cannot be anything but a sword. (But it can be more.)

Love cannot be anything but love. (But it can be more.)

Magic cannot be anything but magic. (But it can be more.)

.

It is the small, insignificant things. It will never be anything but the small, insignificant things. Tiny bubbles of good luck and coincidence—a convenient hole, perhaps, or a clothes that snag in the machinery of armor—that are too frequent, too odd to be anything but. Arthur has always noticed, but he always thought,_ Of course._

"You're _magic_," Merlin says, when the fire dims even though Merlin's eyes have stayed blue, blue, blue. "You're—"

"Don't be ridiculous, Merlin," Arthur snaps, as sharp and as hard as iron. "Don't—"

.

"Steady," Merlin says.

"_Steady,_" Arthur mocks.

.

Somewhere, a wolf gets too close and snaps its jaws at its prey. The prey twitches, the prey convulses, and with their guts spilled out on the ground for a feast, the prey dies.

.

"I am not magic!" Arthur roars, overturning his heavy wooden table. His muscles and tendons stand out like cords beneath the veneer of his golden skin; his hair circles his head in a disarray of gold; his eyes burn molten gold with anger. "I. Am. Not!"

He rips his bed curtains from the frame, he tears the tapestries from the walls, he throws all his clothes out from the armoire and the chest of drawers. Mirrors are broken, pots are shattered, and the meal Merlin has brought him splatters against a wall, cold and untouched.

"But you are, Arthur," Merlin murmurs when Arthur's rage is spent. "You _are._"

.

No one will see the magic Arthur possesses. It pales in comparison to Merlin's; Merlin, who can conjure without a thought, Merlin, who can talk to and command dragons, Merlin, who can defy the balance of life and death and time.

It pales. But it's still there, stitched inside of him. It keeps his bones together and his sinews tight, his teeth and eyes in their sockets, his skin over his muscle. It is the weave of his body, if not his soul, for he was born of it as he was born of Uther and Ygraine.

He is magic, as Merlin is magic, as magic is them.

He remembers being frightened by it. He can't remember when it filled him.

.

"Steady," Merlin says.

And steady, Arthur stays.

* * *

end.


End file.
